Jenny Holiday

Pack your bags for happily ever after

language

Too bad I’m forever parked in the “bitchin’” and “gag me” rut

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Chicklets, it’s finally storming, a giant exhale after a week of alarming weather (Are you there, Kyoto? It’s me Margaret.). I can now speak and write whereas I had until recently been reduced to communicating via sighs and grunts while at home, where the air-conditioner is broken. Food tastes good again. Human contact is tolerable.

The sad result of this molasses heat wave is that I haven’t seen nor spoken to Lily or Lulu so I am sorely lacking in the hijinks department. I will, however, tell you about a bitchin’ press release written by a friend of mine about some research that shows that instant messaging is in fact not threatening teens’ grasp of grammar. It turns out that texting may even make them better grammarians. Who knew? The Toronto Star ran an interesting story on the results.

You know my fondness for both slang and teenagers. Too bad I’m forever parked in the “bitchin’” and “gag me” rut. I’m showing my age, Chicklets. It’s 100 degrees in my house and I’m old.

Was Miss Havisham single? No, she was a spinster

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Remember when Elton John got married a couple months ago in England, which had just legalized same-sex civil unions? Well it turns out that wasn’t the only change to rules governing the old ball and chain: the government also stopped officially classifying women applying for marriage licenses as “spinsters.” So now they’re just “single.” Men don’t get to be bachelors anymore, either. But of course “bachelor” always had an air of choice about it and brought to mind wood paneled walls and extravagant takeout instead of a life resigned to cat hair and Lean Cuisine. Should we be glad about this linguistic leap out of the Middle Ages? I suppose so. But why am I ambivalent, then? Maybe because I like spinsters, and I think the word is on the verge of reclamation. Just the other day I was visiting a friend’s new house and she was showing me her new cleaning products. She beamed and told me she was settled into spinsterhood. It warmed my heart.

In related news, the Cambridge dictionary is dropping the definition of spinster as “a woman who is not married, especially a woman who is no longer young and seems unlikely ever to marry.” Should we be glad about this? No, we should not. How can you reclaim a word if no one remembers what it originally connotated? And was Miss Havisham single? No. She was a spinster, thank you very much.

You’re the cream in my coffee

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I like to tell Lily that she’s the cream in my coffee, because, you know, I’m good with metaphors, and Lily is a fan of cream. (But not that half-and-half crap! Lily’s from Iowa, after all. Cream is 18%, and if you’re being decadent it’s 35%. Most people know 35% cream as “whipping cream” but those of us from America’s Dairyland beg to differ.)

But really, I stole this particular metaphor from Kevin Quain, Toronto musician extraordinaire. “You’re the cream in my coffee,” he says, “you’re the vodka in my tonic, you’re the gin in my martini, you’re the rum in my zombie.” Yes, I am aware that three out of four of his metaphors are based on the “you’re the alcohol in my otherwise innocent drink” formula. But he also says, “you’re the bats in my belfry.” Awwww.

So I’ve decided that instead of stealing metaphors outright, the way to make them my own is to qualify them. Because I for one would rather not have a cup of coffee at all than have to drink a cup of coffee with milk. (And do you want to know something? Some of the women in my office put SKIM milk in their coffee! Yes, I know!)

So let’s say this: Lily, you’re the 35% cream in my coffee. You’re the Tanqueray 10 in my tonic. It’s all about the details, Chicklets! Happiness is in getting the details right.

 

The key is complexity

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There’s a big typo in a pull quote of the current (holiday) issue of the LCBO Magazine (fancy food and wine magazine/thinly veiled advertisement you get free when you buy booze – a provincially-regulated experience – in Ontario). I love finding things like this because they make me feel self-righteous at the same time that they make me groan in sympathy. It’s on page 94, in big purple type:

When selecting cheese to serve with Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the key is complexity. Because it is a very powerful wine you’ll need an equally colourful cheese to stand up to it’s rich flavour.

It’s rich flavour. Ouch.

I’m currently romanticizing working for the LCBO magazine. They probably know what they’re talking about! They probably just finished a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, dutifully trying it with a bunch of different cheeses – you know, taking one for the team so that the rest of us don’t end up drinking it with a brick of mild Kraft cheddar from the grocery store because we didn’t know any better. By the time they wobble back to their cubicles to worry about pull quotes and cut lines, well, their work is done, God bless them.

Girls, like, so rock

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I was tickled to read this article in the Times of London about some new research that finds that the single most powerful influence on the English language is, like, the teenage girl.

Apparently they’re making up clever girlisms left and right and are busy disseminating them via their cell phones. Like that bulge of fat you get when you wear low rider jeans? Muffin top!

Mostly I love this story because you don’t hear that much about teenage girls ruling the world. Not nearly as much as you should, anyway.

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